Harnessing customer's transaction data for efficient operation: a case of debt collections in the consumer finance industry

Abstract

With the burgeoning financial services industry in India, service providers increasingly face the risk of their loans becoming bad and consequently leading to a charge-off loss as indicated by the accumulation of non-performing assets. Efficient back-end operations, based on a systematic analysis of customer characteristics, can ameliorate the situation. This paper describes the process of designing such an efficient back-end process developed by the author at a large retail bank in the United States. It also discusses the scope and limitations of extending the applicability of the model to the Indian financial sector and provides learnings for managers in the financial service sector on efficient design of their debt collection processes.